Cities, Towns, and Communities of Garza County, TX
Close City / Ragtown, TX
Close City, on Ranch Road 399 two miles north of U.S. Highway 380 and eleven miles west of Post in western Garza County, was on a site within the area purchased in 1906 by Charles William Post for his projected settlement. So many of the first inhabitants used tents for homes that the village was called Ragtown, but it was later renamed Close City. For a while Post encouraged construction there, until surveyors discovered that the site was eleven miles from the geographical center of the county and thus could not serve as the location of the county seat. Post ordered work to stop in Close City and proceeded to select the present site of Post. Close City consequently developed slowly. By 1920 it had a store, a school, two churches, and a population of fifty. Though the school consolidated with the Post Independent School District in the 1950s, the store and two churches were still present in the community in the 1980s. In 1990 Close City had a population of 107.
Justiceburg, TX
Justiceburg is on the Santa Fe line, U.S. Highway 84, and the south branch of the Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos River, fifteen miles southeast of Post in southeastern Garza County. Rancher Jefferson Davis Justice gave the railroad a right-of-way in 1910 and also donated the town site. The local post office had operated from 1902 to 1905 as Le Forest. The community reported a population of fifty in 1915, twenty-five in 1925, seventy-five in 1947, and seventy-six in 1980 and 1990. During the 1980s many of the residents were descendants of Jefferson Davis Justice.
Pleasant Valley, TX
Pleasant Valley is a small community in northwestern Garza County on Farm Road 399 near U.S. Highway 84, eight miles northwest of Post. The town was founded around 1906, and a school district was established in 1914. In 1936 Pleasant Valley had a school, two businesses, a factory, and a few scattered dwellings. By the early 1980s all that remained of the community was a church, one business, and a few houses. No population estimates were available.
Post, TX
Post, the county seat of Garza County, is on the Santa Fe Railroad at the junction of U.S. highways 84 and 380, east of the Caprock escarpment near the west central part of the county. The town began under the name Post City in 1907 as a colonizing venture of cereal manufacturer Charles William Post, who sought to develop a model town. He purchased 200,000 acres of ranchland and established the Double U. Company to manage the town's construction. The company built trim houses and numerous structures, which included the Algerita Hotel, a gin, and a textile plant. They planted trees along every street and prohibited alcoholic beverages and brothels. The Double U. Company rented and sold farms and houses to settlers. A post office began in a tent during the year of Post City's founding. Two years later the town had a school, a bank, and a newspaper, the Post City Post. The railroad reached the town in 1910. The town changed its name to Post when it incorporated in 1914, the year of C. W. Post's death. By then Post had a population of 1,000, ten retail businesses, a dentist, a doctor, a sanitarium, and Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches. The Post estate pledged $75,000 and the town raised $35,000 in 1916 to bid unsuccessfully to become the site of the proposed West Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College, later known as Texas Tech University. Postex Cotton Mills, which began production in 1913 with 250 employees, has remained the town's leading industry. When the Post interests sold the business to Ely and Walker Dry Goods Company of St. Louis in 1945, the plant was producing six million yards of cloth a year and employed 375 workers who manufactured Postex cotton sheets and Garza pillow cases. Ely and Walker sold Postex in 1955 to Burlington Industries, the world's largest textile manufacturer at that time. By 1973 the company employed 450 persons. Oilfield service companies have been important to the economy, as have farming and ranching. In 1989 Post had two libraries, a hospital, a nursing home, an airport, the Post Dispatch (founded in 1926), and ninety businesses. The population reached 3,400 in 1928, declined to 2,000 in 1940, and increased to 3,100 during the 1950s. With the development of the local oil industry, the town's population reached 4,800 in 1964. The 1980 census showed a population of 3,864, but by 1988 the Texas Almanac reported 4,162. In 1990 the population was 3,768. By the year 2000, census records reported a population of 3,708; by 2010, that number was 5,376, and by 2019 there were an estimated 5,115 inhabitants.
Southland, TX
Southland is on the Santa Fe Railroad, U.S. Highway 84, and the Caprock two miles from its eastern escarpment and twenty miles northwest of Post in northwest Garza County. It was named by rancher Andrew Briggs (Sug) Robertson for its location on the south part of the V Ranch. The Curry Comb Ranch and several of John B. Slaughter's ranches were located in the area, and Southland became a trading center when the county was organized in 1907. Southland was a station on the Pecos and Northern Texas Railway in 1910 and opened a post office in 1911. A school district was formed in 1913. The community prospered for a time, thanks to Charles W. Post's colonizing of the region, but never really recovered from the setbacks of the Great Depression, which included the closing of its bank. In 1940 Southland had 280 residents and eleven businesses. With a decrease in the farm workforce, the population declined to 153 by 1960. It was 168 in 1980 and 1990.Verbena, TX
Verbena Baptist Church - Used as a landmark in the 19th century by surveyors sighting from Duffy's Peak, located ten miles northeast. Jasper Hays, earliest recorded surveyor of this area, used the peaks during 1877-78 for charting the Llano Ranch, later bought by C. W. Post, the cereal king.